Background

Crime, arrest, and incarceration are related but distinct concepts. Crimes occur when individuals break the law, but not all crimes come to the attention of law enforcement. Of the crimes that do come to the attention of law enforcement, some are diverted from formal proceedings and others result in arrest. Again, not all arrests result in incarceration. The below figure from the Prison Fellowship highlights how the process from arrest to incarceration makes it difficult to compare the rates of crime, arrests, and incarceration directly.

Individuals who are incarcerated may be placed in a jail or prison. Jails hold individuals who are awaiting trial or who have been sentenced to less than year of incarceration. Prisons hold individuals who have been convicted and sentenced to more than year of incarceration. Although there are some differences across states, jails are generally locally operated, and prisons are operated by state or federal governments 1.

Research has mostly focused on men incarcerated in prisons in urban areas, but rural counties have seen a growth in the use of local jails2, particularly to incarcerate women. In fact, rural areas with populations between 10,000 and 50,000, such as Halifax County, have the highest rates of pre-trial detention3.

Given that crime, arrests, and incarceration represent different parts of the criminal justice system, we provide an overview of each in Halifax County. Specifically, we investigate trends in crime over time, common offense types, crime rates by race, and the percent of crimes cleared by arrest. Then, we investigate the incarceration rate with a focus on male and female incarceration rates as well as jails and prisons incarceration rate over time.

Incarceration



Most common offense types and clearance rates

The following figure displays the types of crimes that came to the attention of law enforcement in Halifax County from most common to least common on the left and their corresponding clearance by arrest rate on the right. Drug violations, simple assault, larceny, and destruction of property make up the bulk of the crimes; however, this does not necessarily correspond to higher arrest rates. While drug violations and simple assaults result in arrests nearly \(50\%\) of the time, larceny and destruction of property result in arrests much less frequently. This disparity highlights the complex process that proceeds a crime coming to the attention of law enforcement and precedes an arrest - namely that there exist many latent factors, including difficulty of "solving" the crime and effort put forth by law enforcement, that impact whether an arrest is made.

Clearance rates by race

The figure below displays the clearance by arrest rates of all Virginia county crimes by race. Interestingly, the average clearance rate for crimes by White people is higher than that of crimes by Black people, which potentially underlies differences in the types of crimes. In Halifax County specifically (denoted by the lines in color), the clearance rate for crimes by Black people is above average compared to all Virginia counties, whereas it is below average for crimes by White people compared to other Virginia counties.

Comparison of Halifax county to other VA counties

All Crimes Map

Drug Crimes Map


  1. Bureau of Justice Statistics (n.d.). FAQ detail. Retrieved from: https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=qa&iid=322

  2. Vera Institute of Justice (n.d.). Rural jails research and policy network. Retrieved from: https://www.vera.org/projects/rural-jails-research-and-policy-network/learn-more

  3. McCoy, E.F. & Russo, M. (2018). Implementing alternatives to incarceration for women in rural communities.